Frank that Harris held but an indifferent hand; whereas he held the best
the pack afforded. By that falsehood,--for, with looks and actions at
your command, it is not necessary to open your mouth in order to tell the
most downright, absolute lie,--he had induced Frank to play on boldly to
his own ruin.
But was he alone to blame? Even if he had told the truth about Joe's
hand, ought Frank to have been influenced by it? He had no right to that
knowledge, and to take advantage of it was dishonest.
No doubt Frank himself thought so, now he reflected upon it. To accuse
Jack was to confess his own disingenuousness. He was by nature as fair
and open as the day; he despised a base deception; and it was only as an
inevitable consequence of such wrong doings as lead directly to
faithlessness and duplicity, that he could ever become guilty of these
immoralities.
Such is the vice of gambling--a process by which men hope to obtain their
neighbors' goods without yielding an equivalent for them; and which,
therefore, inflames covetousness, and accustoms the mind to the
contemplation of unjust gains, until it is ready to resort to any unjust
means of securing them. Do you say there are honest gamblers? The term is
a contradiction. You might, with equal consistency, talk of truthful
liars. To get your money, or any thing else, without rendering an
equitable return, is the core of all dishonesty, whether in the gamester,
the pickpocket, the man who cheats in trade, or the boy who robs
orchards. And a conscience once debauched by dishonest aims, will not, as
I said, long scruple at unfair means.
Singularly enough, Frank was more abashed by the betrayal of the unfair
means he had attempted to use, than he had yet been by any consciousness
of the immorality of the practice which led to them. He could not say to
Winch, "You told me I was sure of winning, and so deceived me." He only
looked at him a moment, with wild distress and exasperation on his face,
which quickly changed to an expression of morose and bitter despair; and
dropping his head, and putting up his hands, he burst into irrepressible
sobs.
"My watch! my watch that was given to me--" and which he had so
ignominiously gambled away. No wonder he wept. No wonder he shook from
head to foot with the passion of grief, as the conviction of his own
folly and infatuation burned like intolerable fire in his soul.
"Dry up, baby!" said Jack, through his teeth. "There comes the captain."
Baby? Poor Frank! It was because he was not altogether given over to
recklessness and vice that he cried at the thought of his lost watch, and
of his gross ingratitude to the unknown giver. Still he felt that it was
weak in him to cry. He who risks his property in order to get possession
of another's should be philosopher enough to take with equanimity the
loss of his own.
"Don't be childish, Frank; don't be silly!" said his friends.
And, indeed, he had the strongest reason for suppressing his sobs.
Captain Edney was approaching. He was the last person to whom he would
have wished to betray his guilt and misfortune. He loved and respected
him; and we fear most the disapprobation of those we love and respect.
Moreover, through him the heart-breaking intelligence of her son's evil
courses might reach Mrs. Manly. But no doubt Frank's chief motive for
concealing the cause of his grief from Captain Edney was the suspicion he
still entertained, notwithstanding that officer's professed ignorance of
the entire matter, that he was in reality the secret donor of the watch.
So he choked back his sobs, and pretended to be assorting some pebbles,
which the boys used as counters, especially when certain officers were
passing, who would have reproved them if they had seen money on the
board. And Captain Edney, whether he suspected any thing wrong, or not,
walked on; and that restraint upon Frank's feelings was removed.
But having once controlled the outburst, he did not suffer them to get
the better of him again. With a look of silent and sullen despair, he got
up, and went to his bunk, and threw himself upon it, and, turning his
face to the wall, refused to be comforted.
It was the wooden wall of the ship's timbers--the same he had looked at
in sickness, in storms at sea, by day, and at night by the dim light of
the swinging ship's lanterns; and when he lay calmly at rest, in the palm
of God, amid the convulsions and dangers of the deep, and when, in the
tediousness of long, dull days of waiting, he had lain there, and solaced
himself with sweet thoughts of home.
But never had the ribbed ship's side appeared to him as now. And yet it
was the same; but he was not the same. He was no longer the bright,
hopeful, happy boy as before, but miserable, guilty, broken-hearted. And
as we are, so is the world to us; the most familiar objects changing
their aspect with every change in the soul. Does the sunshine, which was
bright yesterday, look cold to-day? and is the sweet singing of birds
suddenly become as a mockery to the ear? and the faces of friends, late
so pleasant to see, have they grown strange and reproachful? and is life,
before so full of hope, turned sour, and vapid, and bitter? O, my friend,
I pity you; but the change, which you probably think is in the world, is
only in yourself.
"The parson seems to have fallen from grace," said John Winch,
sarcastically.
"Hold your tongue!" said Atwater, sternly. "You are all more to blame
than he is. Of course, a boy of his age will do what he sees older ones
do. It's a shame to get his money and watch away from him so."
And the honest fellow went and sat by Frank, and tried to console him.
"Go away! go away!" said Frank, in his anguish. "Don't trouble yourself
about such a miserable fool as I am. I deserve it all. Let me be!"
Atwater, who was sadly deficient in what is called the gift of gab, had
no soothing words at his command, full as his heart was of compassion.
And after sitting some time by the unhappy boy, patting him softly on the
shoulder, he arose, and went away; concluding that his absence would be a
relief to one so utterly miserable.
Then Seth Tucket came, and took his place.
"That's always the way with bad luck, I swan," he said, sympathizingly.
"Misfortunes always come in heaps. It never rains but it pours."
"I wish you'd let me alone!" said the boy, peevishly.
"That's fair, I swan!" said Seth. "But le' me tell ye. Ef I hed won the
watch, I'd give it back to ye in a minute. But Harris is the winner, and
I've only the watch now to show for my money. But here's a half dollar to
begin again with. You know what luck is at cards,--how it shifts, now
this way, now that, like a cow's tail in fly-time,--and I hain't the
least doubt but with that half dollar you'll win back all your money, and
your watch too."
The offer was kindly meant; and it encouraged a little spark of comfort
in Frank's heart. To win back his losses--that was his only hope. He took
the money, silently pressing Seth's hand. After that he struggled to
forget his grief in thoughts of his former good fortune, which he
believed would now return to him.
XVII.
IN WHICH FRANK SEES STRANGE THINGS.
In this frame of mind, Frank went on deck. He saw the old drum-major
coming towards him. Being in any thing but a social mood, he tried to
avoid him; and turning his back, walked away. But the veteran followed,
and came to his side.
"Well, my young man," said the old cynic, exhibiting a little agitation,
and speaking in a hurried tone, unusual with him, "I hear brave tidings
of you."
His voice sounded harsh and sarcastic to the irritated boy; and, indeed,
there was resentment enough in the veteran's breast, as well as a bitter
sense of injury and disappointment, as he spoke.
Frank, nursing his sore heart, the wounds of which he could not bear to
have touched by the most friendly hand, compressed his lips together, and
made no reply.
"So you have been really gambling--have you?" added the old man, in tones
of suppressed emotion.
"That's my business," said Frank, curtly.
He regretted the undutiful words the instant they escaped his lips. But
he was too proud to ask pardon for them. As for the old man, he stood
silent for a long time, looking down at the boy, who looked not up again
at him. And there was a tremor in his lip, and a dilatation in his eye,
which at length grew misty with a tear that gathered, but did not fall.
And with a sigh, he turned away.
"Well, be it so!" Frank heard him say, as if to himself. "I thought--I
hoped--but no matter."
He thought--he hoped--what? That his early faith in love and friendship,
which had so long been dead, might be raised to life again by this boy,
for whom he had conceived so singular a liking, and who, like all the
rest, proved ungrateful and unworthy when the hour of trial came.
Alas! such is the result of our transgressions. Once having offended our
own souls, we are quick to offend others. And vice makes us irritable,
ungenerous, unjust. And not a crime can be committed, but its evil
consequences follow, not the author of it only, but also the innocent,
upon whom its blighting shadow falls.
"Frank, if you want some fun!" said an eager whisper, with a promise of
mischief in it; a hand at the same time twitching the boy's coat.
It was Ned Ellis, who had come for him, and was hastening away again.
Frank followed--all too ready for any enterprise that would bring the
balm of forgetfulness to his hurt mind.
The boys entered the hold of the vessel, where, in the hush and
obscurity, a group of their companions; stood or sat, among the barrels
and boxes, still as statues, until they recognized the new comers.
"All right! nobody but us," whispered Ned, clambering over the freight,
accompanied by Frank.
"Come along, and make no noise, if you value your hides," said Harris.
"Here, Frank, is something to console ye for your bad luck." And he held
out something in a tin cup.
"What is it?" said Frank; "water?"
"Something almost as good," said Harris. "It was water the boys came down
here in search of; and they've tapped five barrels of sirup in the
operation, and finally they've stuck the gimlet into a cask of--taste
on't."
Frank knew what it was by the smell. It was not the first time he had
smelt whiskey; or tasted it, either. But hitherto he had stopped at the
taste, having nothing but his curiosity to gratify. Now, however, he bad
something else to gratify--a burning thirst of the body, aggravated by
his feverish excitement, and a burning thirst of the soul, which demanded
stimulus of any kind whatsoever that would allay the inward torment.
And so he drank. He did not love the liquor, although the rank taste of
it was ameliorated by a liberal admixture of sirup. But he felt the
internal sinking and wretchedness of heart and stomach braced up and
assuaged by the first draught; so he took another. And for the same
reason he indulged in a third. And so it happened that his head began
shortly to swim, his eyes to see double, and things to look queer to them
generally. The dim hold of the vessel might have been the pit of
darkness, and the obscure grinning faces of his comrades might have been
those of imps therein abiding, for aught he knew to the contrary, or
cared. He began to laugh.
"What's the matter, Frank?"
"Nothing," he said, thickly; "only it's so droll." And he sat down on a
cask, laughing again with uncontrollable merriment--at nothing; an
infallible symptom that a person is either tipsy or a fool. But Frank was
not a fool. _Ergo:_ he was tipsy.
"Get him up as quick as we can, boys," he heard some one saying, "or else
we can't get him up at all."
"Better leave him here till he gets over it," said another. "That'll be
the best way."
"Who'd have thought a little dodger like that would upset him?" said
somebody else. "By George we'll all get found out, through him."
"Whads mare?" said Frank, meaning to ask, "What is the matter?" but
somehow he could not make his organs of articulation go off right. "'Zis
wachecall drung?" (Is this what you call drunk?)
"Can ye walk?"--He recognized the voice of his friend Tucket.--"It's too
bad to leave him here, boys. We must get him to his berth 'fore he's any
worse."
"Zhue, Sef?" (Is it you, Seth?) Frank, with the help of his friend, got
upon his feet. "No, I don' breeve I'm drung; I be bernaliddlewile;"
meaning to say he did not believe he was intoxicated, and to express his
conviction that he would be better in a little while.
Seth repeated his first inquiry.
"Izzindee! I kung wong!" (Yes, indeed, I can walk.) And Frank, as if to
demonstrate the absurdity of the pretence, went stumbling loosely over
the freight, saved from falling only by the assistance of his friend.
"Here's the ladder," said Tucket; "now be careful."
"'M I goung upthlarer, or am I goung downth larer?" (Was he going up the
ladder or was he going down the ladder?)
Tucket proceeded to show him that the ladder was to be ascended; and,
directing him how to hold on, and how to place his feet, boosted him
gently, while a comrade above drew him also gently, until he was got
safely out.
"I did that perrywell!" said Frank. "Now lemme hell Sef!" (Now let me
help Seth.) "You're a bully fellel, Sef. I'll hellup ye!"
"Thank ye, boy," said Tucket; indulging him in the ludicrous notion that
_he_ was helping _his friends_. "Much obliged."
"Nod tall!" (Not at all,) said Frank. "Bully fellels like youme
mushellpitchuthth." (Must help each other.) "You unstan me, Sef?"
"Yes, I understand you. But keep quiet now, and come along with me."
So saying, the athletic soldier threw his arm affectionately around
Frank, hurried him away to his bunk, and tumbled him into it without much
ceremony.
Not unobserved, however. Captain Edney, who had had an anxious eye on
Frank of late, saw him retire to his quarters in this rather suspicious
manner.
"What's the matter with him?" he inquired of Seth.
"Nothing very serious, I believe, sir," replied Tucket, with the most
perfect seriousness. "A little seasick, or sunthin of the kind. He'll git
over it in a jiffy."
The waves were not running sufficiently high in the sound, however, to
render the theory of seasickness very plausible; and, to satisfy his
mind, Captain Edney approached Frank's bunk, putting to him the same
question.
Frank replied in scarcely intelligible language, with a swimming gaze,
tending to the cross-eyed, at the captain, "that there was nothing in
partiggler the mare with him, but he was very busy.
"Busy?" said Captain Edney, severely; "what do you mean?"
"Not busy; but _busy, busy_!" repeated Frank.
"You mean dizzy?"
"Yes, thad's it! bizzy." He had somehow got _boozy_ and _dizzy_ mixed
up.
"What makes you dizzy?"
"Boys gimme some drink, I donowat."
"The boys gave you some drink? You don't know what?--Tucket," said
Captain Edney, "what's all this? Who has been getting that boy drunk?"
Seth perceived that any attempt to disguise the truth would be futile,
except so far as it might be possible by ingenious subtleties to shield
his companions. The alarm, be believed, must have reached them by this
time, and have scattered the group at the whiskey barrel; so he answered
boldly,--
"The fact, sir, is jest this. We've been about half crazy for water, as
you know, for the past week or two; and men'll do almost any thing for
relief, under such circumstances. It got rumored around, somehow, that
there was plenty of water in the vessel, and the boys went to hunting
for't, and stumbled on the quartermaster's stores, and tapped a few
casks, I believe, mostly sirup, but one turned out to be whiskey. Dry as
we be, it's no more'n nat'ral 't we should drink a drop, under the
circumstances."
"Who tapped the casks?"
"That's more'n I know. I didn't see it done," said Seth.
"Who drank?"
"I drinked a little, for one; jest enough to know 't wan't water.
"And how many of you are drunk?" demanded Captain Edney.
"I a'n't, for one. But I believe Manly is a little how-come ye-so. I'll
say this for him, though: he had nothing to do with tapping the casks,
and he didn't seem to know what it was the boys gin him. He was dry; it
tasted sweet, and he drinked, nat'rally."
"Who gave him the whiskey?"
"I didn't notice, particularly," said Seth.
His accomplices were summoned, the quartermaster was notified, and the
affair was still further investigated. All confessed to having tasted the
liquor, but nobody knew who tapped the casks, or who had given the
whiskey to Frank, and all had the same plausible excuse for their
offence--intolerable thirst. It was impossible, where all were leagued
together, and all seemed equally culpable, to single out the ringleaders
for punishment, and it was not desirable to punish all. After a while,
therefore, the men were dismissed with a reprimand, and the subject
postponed indefinitely. That very afternoon forty barrels of water came
on board, and the men had no longer a pretext for tapping casks in the
hold; and a few days later was the battle, in which they wiped out by
their bravery all memory of past transgressions.
And Frank? The muss, as the boys called it, was over before his senses
recovered from their infinite bewilderment. He lay stupefied in his bunk,
which went whirling round and round with him, sinking down and down and
down, into void and bottomless chaos, where solid earth was none--type of
the drunkard's moral state, where virtue has lost its foot-hold, and
there is no firm ground of self-respect, and conscience is a loosened
ledge toppling treacherously, and there is no steady hope to stay his
horrible whirling and sinking. Stupefaction became sleep; with sleep
inebriation passed; and Frank awoke to misery.
It was evening. The boys were playing cards again by the light of the
ship's lantern. The noise and the glimmer reached Frank in his berth, and
called him back to time and space and memory. He remembered his watch,
his insolent reply to his old friend Sinjin, the scene in the hold of the
vessel, the sweet-tasting stuff, and the dizziness, a strange ladder
somewhere which he had either climbed or dreamed of climbing; and he
thought of his mother and sisters with a pang like the sting of a
scorpion. He could bear any thing but that.
He got up, determined not to let vain regrets torment him. He shut out
from his mind those pure images of home, the presence of which was
maddening to him. Having stepped so deep into guilt, he would not, he
could not, turn back. For Frank carried even into his vices that
steadiness of resolution which distinguishes such natures from those of
the Jack Winch stamp, wavering and fickle alike in good and ill. He
possessed that perseverance and purpose which go to form either the best
and noblest men, or, turned to evil, the most hardy and efficient
villains. Frank was no milksop.
"O, I'm all right," said he, with a reckless laugh, in reply to his
comrades' bantering. "Give me a chance there--can't you?"
For he was bent on winning back his watch. It seemed that nothing short
of the impossible could turn him aside from that intent. The players made
room for him, and he prepared his counters, and took up his cards.
"What do you do, Frank?" was asked impatiently; all were waiting for him.
What ailed the boy? He held his cards, but he was not looking at them.
His eyes were not on the board, nor on his companions, nor on any object
there. But he was staring with a pallid, intense expression--at
something. There were anguish, and alarm, and yearning affection in his
look. His hair was disordered, his countenance was white and amazed; his
comrades were astonished as they watched him.
"What's the matter, Frank? what's the matter?"
Their importunity brought him to himself.
"Did you see?" he asked in a whisper.
They had seen nothing that he had seen. Then it was all an illusion? a
fragment of his drunken dreams? But no drunken dream was ever like that.
"Yes, I'll play," he said, trying to collect himself thinking that he
would forget the illusion, and remembering he had his watch to win back.
But his heart failed him. His brain, his hand failed him also.
Absolutely, he could not play.
"Boys, I'm not very well. Excuse me--I can't play to-night."
And hesitatingly, like a person who has been stunned, he got up, and left
the place. Few felt inclined to jeer him. John Winch begun to say
something about "the parson going to pray," but it was frowned down.
Frank went on deck. The evening was mild, the wind was south, the sky was
clear and starry; it was like a May night in New England. The schooner
was riding at anchor in the sound; other vessels of the fleet lay around
her, rocking gently on the tide--dim hulls, with glowing, fiery eyes; and
here there was a band playing, and from afar off came the sound of solemn
singing, wafted on the wind. And the water was all a weltering waste of
waves and molten stars.
But little of all this Frank saw, or heard, or heeded. His soul was rapt
from him; he was lost in wonder and grief.
"Can you tell me any thing?" said a voice at his side.
"O, Atwater," said Frank, clutching his hand, "what does it mean? As I
was playing, I saw--I saw--every thing else disappeared; cards, counters,
the bench we were playing on, and there before me, as plainly as I ever
saw any thing in my life----"
"What was it?" asked Atwater, as Frank paused, unable to proceed.
"My sister Hattie." then said Frank, in a whisper of awe, "in her coffin!
in her shroud! But she did not seem dead at all. She was white as the
purest snow; and she smiled up at me--such a sweet, sad smile--O! O!"
And Frank wrung his hands.
XVIII.
BITTER THINGS.
Atwater could not have said much to comfort him, even if he had had the
opportunity. Some young fellows who had heard of Frank's losses at bluff,
and of his intoxication, saw him on deck, and came crowding around to
have some jokes with him. Atwater retired. And Frank, who had little
relish for jokes just then, went below, and got into his berth, where he
could be quiet, and think a little.
But thinking alone there with his conscience was torture to him. He
turned on his bed and looked, and saw Atwater sitting in his bunk, with
a book in his hand, reading by the dim light. The card-playing was going
on close by, and jokes and oaths and laughter were heard on all sides;
but Atwater heeded no one, and no one heeded him.
Only Frank: he regarded the still, earnest soldier a long time, silently
admiring his calmness and strength, so perfectly expressed in his mild,
firm, kindly, taciturn face, and wondering what book he had.
"What are you reading, Atwater?" he at length asked.
"My Bible," replied the soldier, giving him a grave, pleasant smile.
Frank felt pained,--almost jealous. I can't tell how it is, but we don't
like too well the sight of our companions cheerfully performing those
duties which we neglect or hate. Cain slew Abel for that cause.
"I didn't know you read that," said Frank.
"I never have too much. But my wife----" The soldier's voice always sunk
with a peculiarly tender thrill whenever he spoke of his bride of an
hour, or rather of a minute, whom he had wedded and left in such haste.
"She slipped a Bible in my knapsack unbeknown to me. I had a letter from
her to-day, in which she asked me if I read it. So I must read it, and
say yes, if only to please her. But the truth is," said Atwater, with a
brightening eye, "I find good in it I never thought was there before."
Frank had no word to answer him. Conscience-stricken, sick at heart,
miserable as he could be, he could only lie there in his berth, and look
at the brave soldier, and envy him.
He remembered how, not long ago, when his mother's wishes were more to
him than they had been of late, he had desired to read his Testament for
her sake, but had not dared to do so openly, fearing the sneers of his
comrades. And his mother, in every letter, repeated her injunction, "My
son, read your Testament;"--which had become to him as the idle wind. For
never now, either by stealth or openly, did he read that book.
Yet here was this plain, honest soldier,--many called him dull,--for whom
a word from one he loved was sufficient; he took the book as if that word
were law. And the looks, the jests, which Frank had feared, were nothing
to him.